Outsider Annecy "Happy" to Prove IOC Wrong

(ATR) Despite a few IOC concerns, Annecy CEO Charles Beigbeder tells Around the Rings he's "quite happy" the 2018 Evaluation Commission has recognized the bid's "enormous progress" in recent months.

Speaking to ATR after a press conference in Paris, Beigbeder said he was pleased the IOC had qualified Annecy as an "extremely high-level bid" that was capable of staging the Games. The IOC said the same of its rivals Munich and PyeongChang.

He said that the technical evaluation review now allowed the IOC membership to choose between the bids what they wanted to bring to the Olympic Family "at this point in time".

"It is wrong to rank the three bids on the basis of the report, because the report does not rank the bids, it just mentions some weaknesses," he told ATR.

Beigbeder responded positively to the bid's three weaknesses - journey times between venues, low public support and accommodation.

The main IOC criticism centered on the complexity of travel times between the French bid's four venue zones and four Olympic villages for the different client groups including media. Under the bid, there are more than 200 media accommodation facilities spread around the Annecy region.

"We are the only bid trying to organize in a mountain city and that is reflectedin the journey times," he said.

"However, we are focusing on the comfort of athletes and on that basis by locating 80 percent of athletes within 10 minutes of their competition venues that is what counts."

He added: "We will try to demonstrate that the journey times are very reasonable and are in line with what could be expected of this type of event."

Responding to the December poll cited in the report that puts public support for Annecy at just 51 percent, Beigbeder said: "That was done at a very, very bad moment for us.

"The majority of Annecy people are in favor of the bid. We are confident that since the beginning of the year we have more support. We have the total support of the government, municipalities and the private sector."

The spread of accommodations in the Annecy bid also drew concerns from the IOC. About 25,500 guaranteed rooms are located in 533 accommodation facilities in France and Geneva.

Beigbeder defended the plan, saying the accommodations could be regarded as a strength of the bid.

"We don't have big hotels, we didn't want that. We have proposed smaller hotels, that is what we think people will like," he said.

Written by Mark Bisson